


dissonance swiftly pulled into tune

by sparkycap



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Blow Jobs, Canon Era, Episode: s01e08 The Last Patrol, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2016-10-26
Packaged: 2018-08-27 03:05:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8384821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparkycap/pseuds/sparkycap
Summary: Ron falls apart quietly, the same way he does almost everything else. Carwood thinks someone should do something about that.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A million thanks to whip-pan for the beta!

There were things Dick had expected from the war.

Lewis Nixon hadn’t been one of them. Jumping out of airplanes, yes. Firing a weapon, yes. Getting killed or wounded hadn’t been an expectation, necessarily, but it had been an accepted possibility. Love hadn’t factored into the equation.

He’d still been able to come to terms with it by Toccoa. That was the first time.

It was different with Carwood.

Carwood was different for so many reasons. Carwood was, for so long, an officer in everything but name and a exemplary senior noncom long before that. That was what set him apart from the men; this was what set him apart from the officers: everything he got he gave back tenfold, whether it was a helping hand or a pat on the shoulder or a smile. The smiles were the most impressive, the way he could take the tiniest quirk of the lips from Dick and turn it into sunshine for the rest of the boys.

And mostly it was different because it wasn’t love, or at least not the same way it was with Nix, but it was _something_. That one he’d realized after Normandy.

And he’d decided that he didn’t mind at all by Carentan—that as long as Carwood came back from the hospital safe and sound with his sunshine smiles, with the quietly amused expressions he’d share with Dick every time Nix was ranting and Harry was raving, with his calm, steady presence—then it could be love. Dick would love him without qualms for the rest of his life, if that was what it took to get him back okay.

Ron Speirs was something else entirely.

Bastogne had been hell for all of them, but it was a special kind of hell for Carwood. Dick had been as okay as could be because he had Nix, and the men had been as okay as could be because they had Carwood, but all Carwood had was an incompetent CO and hacking, rattling coughs to keep him up at night. And Dick hadn’t been able to do a thing.

Nix hadn’t, either. It hadn’t occurred to Dick that it might bother him too, until Carwood was giving them the news about Hoobler and Nix was saying, “Aw, hell, Lip,” with a particular softness.

In the end, Ron was the one to take that heavy weight off Carwood’s shoulders, and Dick thinks they’d have to love the man just for that, if nothing else.

There turn out to be plenty of other things to love him for, anyhow, and it turns out Nix has known that since Georgia. Dick and Carwood get there in Foy. Maybe it’s the way Ron near singlehandedly saves Easy, or maybe it’s the way, the first night Ron is with them, Carwood actually sleeps through it, but there’s that _something_ again.

Things come close to settling, after that, as close as they ever come in war. Easy is getting closer and closer to being pulled off the line, Dick is too immersed in keeping an eye on Carwood’s sickness and keeping as many men alive as he possibly could to worry often about his personal relationships, and spring is on its way. Dick and Nix take care of the missions, Ron and Carwood take care of the men, and they all three do their best to take care of Carwood.

The oversight that never occurs to them is, in all of that, no one was taking care of Ron.

They notice, of course, that there are plenty of signs—his voice hoarse and taut to the point of breaking, the way he meets their eyes even less than usual, wild unfocused gaze trained on the floor or over their shoulders. But none of those are nearly so concerning as the way Carwood hasn’t stopped shaking since December or how he tries expels a lung every time he breathes or how he refuses to be pulled off the line to get himself to a real hospital. First things first.

“No,” Carwood says.

Dick stops in the doorway. Nix runs into his back. From over Dick’s shoulder, he asks, “No?”

“I don’t need any more blankets, or another coffee, or for either of you to fluff my goddamn pillows,” Carwood says, a thin thread of irritation in his tired voice. Then he winces and adds, “Sir.”

Then Ron brushes past both of them into the room, two more blankets in his arms, and says, “You can never have enough blankets, Carwood.”

“Normally I would agree with you, sir,” Carwood says. “But I’ve somehow come by at least eight, and they don’t seem to be doing a damn thing.”

“Someone’s got a mouth on him today,” Nix observes, finally moving into the room and shutting the door behind him.

Carwood stares down into his coffee cup. “Sorry, sir.”

“Aw, come on, Lip, you know I’m not complaining. Hoping you’ll rub off on this one, actually,” Nix says, jerking a thumb at Dick. “That was the closest either of you get to complaining.”

“I complain,” Dick protests mildly.

“When things are bad for the men,” Ron says. “For yourself? Not so much.”

Nix points at him. “Exactly. Thank you.”

Ron shrugs, sitting at the edge of Carwood’s bed and smoothing his blanket. “You should be sleeping.”

“So should you,” Carwood counters.

“You’re sick.”

“When was the last time you slept?”

“France,” Ron answers promptly. “Just like the rest of us.”

“Ron’s not the one who should be in a hospital right now,” Dick says.

“Isn’t he?” Carwood mutters.

Dick and Nix share a confused look. Ron warns, “Carwood.”

“Sir,” Carwood says. He closes his mouth and looks away.

“Is everything—“ Nix starts. Dick cuts him off with a tiny shake of his head. Not the time.

“Don’t you have a fake report to write?” Ron asks Nix.

“Sure, I’m working on it.”

“You have an interesting definition of working.”

“It’s brewing, okay?”

The thing about Lew, of course, is that it’s true. He’s brilliant in a way Dick doesn’t quite comprehend, and in his head he’s probably working on three things at once all while having this conversation. The report will get done.

Dick leaves the two of them to bicker, even though they don’t seem to be falling into their usual routine. Instead Ron is staring at the floor, and Nix is frowning over the curtains, trying to pull them tighter. Dick sits in the chair next to Carwood’s bed that he has a feeling Ron has been sleeping in, and says, “Are you—“

“Sir,” Carwood interrupts. “Please don’t.”

“Don’t?” Dick asks, brow furrowed.

“I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, sir, but I’m fine. Or I will be, and there’s nothing anyone can do to make that happen quicker. “ Dick refrains from mentioning that a hospital doctor might be able to do some very good things for that, and Carwood continues, “I’m not the one who needs your concern right now, and I don’t know why—“

Carwood stops, shaking his head and pressing his lips shut, an action Dick recognizes from years of army conditioning. You don’t point it out when your CO is being an idiot, you shut up and salute.

Dick has never wanted to be that kind of CO, and he doesn’t want that to be the only thing he is to Carwood.

“Speak your mind, Lip,” Dick tells him.

“All due respect, sir, I don’t know why no one else can see that,” Carwood says.

“Well, that’s what we’ve got you for,” Dick says, lips quirking into something of a smile. “Tell me.”

Carwood looks pointedly at Ron. “Someone needs to take care of him. And I can’t right now.”

Nix wanders over. “What are you talking about?”

But Dick looks at Ron, really looks, and thinks he gets it. It’s the vacancy in Ron’s gaze, like he hasn’t even realized they’re talking about him. “Ron,” he says. He doesn’t use his command voice, and Ron doesn’t move. Dick puts a little more steel into it. “Ron.”

“Hm?” Ron looks up, taking a moment before he settles on Dick, blinking slowly.

“Oh,” Nix says. “That.”

Carwood pulls a frustrated grimace and agrees, “That.”

Ron’s blank expression quickly turns irritated. “Carwood, I’m as fine as any other man here.”

“Oh, don’t sell yourself short,” Nix says, winking. “You’re much finer.”

Carwood ducks his head and smiles like he’d laugh if it were the right time. Ron just looks at Dick, but the tension in his face is a little looser when he says, “Would you tell him?”

“Sure,” Dick agrees. “Let me just—“ He reaches out toward Ron, close enough to come into contact with him, but as soon as his fingers brush Ron’s shoulder, Ron jerks away. Dick turns to Carwood and tells him, “You’re right.”

“That proves nothing,” Ron snaps.

“Jesus, Ron, you’re full of shit,” Nix says.

“Ron,” Carwood says quietly, setting a careful hand on Ron’s thigh. Ron twitches like he wants to move, but he doesn’t. Instead he sits, bowstring-tense, and scrapes his teeth across his bottom lip, eyes on the opposite wall.

“What can we do?” Dick asks.

The question, he realizes belatedly, was mostly directed at Carwood, but Ron answers. “What more is there? Carwood’s fever broke last night, the men are safe tonight, we’re moving off the line tomorrow. There’s nothing left to fix.”

“What can we do?” Nix repeats, clearly looking straight at Carwood.

“Nothing,” Ron says anyway.

“There is that thing I did in Rachamps,” Carwood says.

Ron whips his head around. “ _Carwood_.”

“It’s a thought, sir,” Carwood says.

“What did you do in Rachamps?” Nix asks.

At this point Carwood flushes a little—not quite a product of the fever anymore—and says, “Well, I can’t right now, but—“

“Lip, you dog, are you suggesting sex as a cure-all?” Nix asks.

“Well, that is one way to take care of him,” Dick says dryly.

“Is anyone going to ask _me_ about this?” Ron asks.

Dick hums. “Sure, Ron. I’ll ask you. What did Carwood do?”

“That’s not—“

“He knows that’s not what you meant,” Nix interrupts. He takes a seat on the bed behind Ron, close but not yet touching, and Ron’s eyes find the floor again. Nix laughs, sliding an arm around Ron’s waist under the uniform jacket, hand splayed flat against his stomach to pull him closer. Ron doesn’t move away this time, but he doesn’t relax, either.

“He got me off,” Ron answers vaguely.

“How?” Nix asks, pressed flush against Ron’s back now, hand rucking up his uniform shirt searching for bare skin. Ron is trembling. Carwood rubs soothingly across his thigh.

“Ron,” Dick says, leaning forward to catch his eyes. “You said it yourself. There’s nothing left to fix. It’s all under control.”

“We’re in a war zone, Dick,” Ron manages. “It’s never all under control.”

“It’s as well as it can be,” Nix answers for him. “We’re all here. We’ve got all night. We’re all very interested in what you and Lip got up to in a goddamn convent of all places.”

Dick leans forward and runs a hand through Ron’s hair, running his fingertips down the side of his face as he pulls away. He says, “Relax.”

Ron stares at him for a moment, utterly still. Then he closes his eyes and nods minutely. The breath shudders out of him on the next exhale, and he leans back into Nix. A certain amount of tension drains out of him, enough that he sinks down until his head is resting on Nix’s shoulder and he can turn his face into Nix’s neck. Nix presses his lips to Ron’s forehead and murmurs, “How, Ron?”

“I hate you,” Ron says, not moving away.

“Remember when you had to call me sir?” Nix muses. “So much respect. I miss that.”

Carwood, curled up under his blankets and passing in and out of a light doze now that his concerns regarding Ron are being addressed, calls sleepily, “No, you don’t, sir.”

“Right, that’s what we have Lip for,” Nix says fondly.

“I’ll still call Dick sir,” Ron says.

“Not right now,” Dick says.

“Yes, sir,” Ron says.

Nix slides a hand down to ghost his fingers over Ron’s fly, making him squirm. He grabs at Nix’s arm, eyes opening, and moves to sit up. Nix just holds him in place and says, “Bet you’ll say it for me, too. Hell, you’ll say it for Lip. I’ll get you there.”

“Not the time for games, Lew,” Dick admonishes. He could already see Ron starting to tense again, eyes lighting up with the challenge, and as nice as that is to see again it’s not what they need right now.

“Tell ‘em how, Ron,” Carwood mumbles, getting them back on track. Dick smiles and leans over to smooth his hair, pulling his blankets up a little more. Even sick and sleeping, he’s keeping them steady.

“How did Carwood get you off?” Dick asks, reminding him.

Ron is busy pressing kisses across the base of Nix’s throat and his collarbone, nosing aside the uniform fabric to get further down his chest. Quiet, in between, he says, “He needed to relax. So I was going to suck him, and he—“

And Nix cuts Ron off to kiss him, tipping his face up by the tight grip in his hair. Ron makes a soft noise, barely audible, and opens for him easily. He seems happy to let go of the thread of the conversation in favor of helping Nix undo his pants, Nix’s hand slipping under Ron’s waistband to cup him through his briefs.

“Lew,” Dick says, rolling his eyes. “Let him finish.”

Carwood laughs a little, reaching out to Dick. He laces their fingers together, pressing a kiss to Carwood’s knuckles. Carwood says, “You should do something about that, sir.”

“I don’t know. It is supposed to be stress relief,” Dick says, watching Ron clutch Nix’s forearm and shift his hips up toward Nix’s hand. Nix rubs the heel of his palm over Ron’s cock and kisses him deeper. “We could let them have fun.”

“Stress relief for Ron,” Carwood points out.

Dick hums. “True. Ron?”

Ron breaks away from Nix at the tone of Dick’s voice, attentive even as he leans back into Nix, eyes glazed but focused firmly on Dick. His mouth is parted, kiss red and spit slick, hair mussed from Nix’s fingers. He looks a beautiful sight for sore, war-weary eyes.

“Go on,” Dick tells him.

“I got on my knees,” Ron starts again. Nix twitches, but a firm look from Dick keeps him still. “And he fucked my mouth—“

“—his throat, really,” Carwood corrects, eyes closed.

Nix looks like Christmas came early. “We need to get that one delirious with fever more often,” he says, pointing at Carwood. “He’s so much more fun this way.”

“Fever broke yesterday,” Ron says. “He’s not as innocent as you think he is.”

“We’ll have to test that when he gets better,” Nix says, grinning.

“Lookin’ forward to it, sir,” Carwood mumbles.

Nix muffles his chuckle in Ron’s shoulder, biting down when it makes Ron huff. He asks, “Did that get you off? That all you needed?”

Ron nods, next breath coming out as a sigh. “Pretty much.”

“What did it?” Dick asks.

“He dropped down in front of me and kissed me,” Ron says. “I still had some of his come in my mouth, and it was messy, and he touched me like this,” Ron guides Nix’s hand back over his cock, squeezing and letting out a breath while Nix groans. “And that was it.”

“And did it work?” Dick asks. “Did you relax?”

“Slept through the whole night, sir. Both of us,” Carwood says, shifting and sighing and rubbing his cheek against Dick’s hand. Ron watches him, eyes soft, and nods.

“Well, in that case,” Dick says.

Nix gets the message, kissing Ron again and asking into his mouth, “Wanna do it again?”

“Please,” Ron breathes.

Nix shoots a look at Dick. He’s looking for permission to push it, just a little bit, tease that extra inch that will get Ron moaning and adding _please, sir_. Dick shakes his head. Not the time. Nix subsides, quirking a brow in another silent question. _Which one?_

Dick answers out loud. “You’re already on the bed.”

“Not the best position,” Nix replies. “Could use better leverage.”

“You don’t need to fuck him hard or anything, sir,” Carwood says sleepily. “Just keep him still. Don’t give him anywhere to go, y’know?”

“Well, that’s easy enough,” Dick says. Ron himself seems to have lost the thread of the conversation, either that or he really appreciates where it’s going. He’s got his eyes closed again, face turned back into Nix’s neck, brow furrowed with pleasure or frustration while Nix strokes far too lightly up his inner thigh, his cock, his lower stomach, and then back down again, over and over until Ron’s mouth is panting open against Nix’s pulse point.

“Come closer,” Carwood requests, resettling himself so he’s propped on his side. Nix nudges Ron up from the bed, and Dick stands to support him, sliding an arm around him while Nix sits on the edge of the bed, leaning up against Carwood and conveniently supported by the curve of his body. Ron turns to blink up at Dick, and Dick finds himself dropping a kiss to that still-red mouth.

Then he puts Ron on his knees in front of Lew, dragging his own chair forward and sitting back down so his legs bracket Ron’s shoulders from behind. Ron relaxes into the position, closed in near completely by Dick behind him and Nix in front of him, and turns his head to press a kiss to the inside of Dick’s knee before leaning his shoulder against it.

“There you go,” Dick tells him quietly. Ron shudders, hand curling around Dick’s ankle, and Dick stretches out both hands—one to take Carwood’s again, and the other to stroke briefly over Ron’s hair. “Ready, Lew?”

Nix nods, leaning down to kiss Ron one more time while he undoes his own trousers, tugging them down just barely, just enough. Ron doesn’t wait for him to get his briefs down before he presses a kiss to his cock through the underwear, closing his lips around it at the base and sucking through the cloth. Nix loses a chuckle to a moan, hand coming up to fist in Ron’s hair again. “Impatient?”

Ron noses along the length of Nix’s cock before rubbing his cheek against it in what may or may not be a nod. He says, voice already hoarse, “This is what you wanted from me, isn’t it? I’m relaxing.”

“We can do better,” Dick says. Just like that, Ron leans back to let Nix drag his briefs out of the way. He twists his head around to look at Dick before he makes another move, and Dick rewards him with a small smile and a hand on the back of Ron’s head to guide him down.

Ron doesn’t stop. He closes his lips over the head of Nix’s cock and spends a moment there, savoring, tongue pressed flat, but he doesn’t _stop_. He moves on, inch by inch, working Nix’s cock down his throat until Nix’s hips are lifting off the bed in helpless pulses and Ron is making noises that, were they not muffled by his mouthful, would be too much for the thin walls in this war-torn house and probably get them all arrested.

“Fuck, that’s it,” Nix says, deep and breathless but settling into it, hips rolling at a languid pace now. He holds Ron in place by the hair, making Carwood squeeze his hip in silent approval, and says, “That’s good, sweetheart.”

Ron makes a broken noise and closes his eyes, brow furrowed again, hand squeezing around Dick’s ankle and the other fisted in the sheets by Nix’s hip. Carwood sets his hand flat over that one, smoothing out his tense grip and curling their fingers together, and Ron lets out a relieved breath through his nose and holds on tight.

Dick curves his palm over the front of Ron’s throat, trailing his fingers up and down before moving the touch to Ron’s cheek, feeling the shape of Nix’s cock in his mouth. Nix’s hips jerk up hard at that, and Dick does it again, curious. He’s not sure if Nix can feel it or if it’s just the sight that has him reacting, but his eyes are dark and burning, and Dick lives for that look.

So he leans down and presses his lips to Ron’s cheek, open mouthed, once, twice. Then he does the same to the corner of Ron’s lips stretched around the base of Nix’s cock, making both Ron and Nix whine. He moves his mouth to Ron’s ear and asks, “Are you ready?”

He feels Ron’s hand squeeze around his calf, as good an answer as any, and slips to the floor behind Ron. He fits himself snugly against Ron’s back, just how Ron likes, and slips a hand into his undone trousers to run it over his thighs, skin warm and scared and sensitive. Ron whimpers around Nix’s cock, the feel of it making Nix groan and shove his hips up while holding Ron down and that’s it, that’s Dick’s cue to curl his hand around Ron’s cock and stroke him hard and fast, just a few times before Ron is letting out a choked moan around Nix and coming into Dick’s hand.

Nix gasps, hand clenching in Ron’s hair, but Carwood rouses himself to say, “Wait, wait. Pull out a bit.”

“Come again?” Nix manages, jaw tight with the effort of restraining himself.

“Don’t come straight down his throat,” Carwood says. And at first Dick thinks he’s being polite, just good manners after all, but he clarifies, “He won’t taste it that way.”

Which is enough to make Nix grunt, whether it’s the thought forcing a noise out of him or an actual agreement, but he loosens his grip on Ron’s hair enough to let him slide up and softens the roll of his hips, just shallowly fucking Ron’s mouth now while Ron does his best to work him through. That’s it, Dick thinks, in the end. That’s what does it for Nix—the sight of Ron, heavy-lidded and hazy, long eyelashes resting over flushed cheeks when he finally just closes his eyes and stops moving, presses his tongue up under the head of Nix’s cock and lets his mouth be used.

Nix comes on a sigh that would no doubt be a moan if they had the privacy, breath hitching and hand clenching in Ron’s hair again. Dick’s eyes can’t seem to choose between savoring the pleasure-slack part of Lew’s mouth or the line of Ron’s throat working as he swallows.

When Nix lets Ron up completely, he’s slow to rise. Dick keeps his arms around Ron and holds him upright against his chest, rubbing circles on his stomach as his shallow breathing evens out. He asks, “Okay?”

“Okay,” Ron answers after a long moment, voice sounding even worse than before, hoarse and gravelly and infinitely _better_ anyway. His lips are red and swollen and coated in spit and come, and his eyelids flutter shut again when he licks across them without thinking. He shudders in Dick’s arms.

“Hey,” Nix says, leaning down and kissing Ron, tongue swiping across his lips to get a taste for himself. He breaks off to drop his forehead against Ron’s, thumbs away a smear of something in the corner of his lips and says, “Thank you, beautiful.”

Ron tips his head up to catch Nix in another kiss, light and worn out, understandable with the way Dick imagines his mouth feels right about now. Nix’s arm finds its way around Ron’s hips, and Dick detaches now that he’s not the only thing holding Ron up. Ron just breaks the kiss to look back at him, eyes zeroing in on the bulge in his trousers before flicking up to meet his. He starts, “I can—“

“You can rest,” Dick says, reaching out to push his hair back. “I’m fine.”

Ron frowns. Nix yawns his way through a stretch and then rolls his neck, offers, “Do you want me to—“

“Honestly?” Dick interrupts. “I’m tired. I’d rather just lie down.”

It’s been a long goddamn war. A long time on the line, and tomorrow they’re coming off. He can wait, if it means they can sleep.

“You are one of a kind,” Nix announces, pushing himself to his feet and shaking his head. He pulls Ron up and into an embrace, probably meaning to go somewhere with it but getting distracted by Ron ducking his face into Nix’s shoulder and sighing sleepily. Dick grabs them a cloth and sloshes some water over it, handing it to Nix to clean them both up while he considers where to sleep.

Ron will be climbing into bed with Carwood any second now, curling around his back and attempting to provide as much warmth as he can through shared body heat and impressive willpower. Carwood, who’s been slipping in and out of a doze this whole time but has been out for a bit now, will wake up briefly to settle his arm over Ron’s and turn to kiss him quick. There won’t be much room left over.

Still, he meets Nix’s eyes across the room, and Nix shrugs.

They’re not going anywhere. There’s enough blankets for eight men here, a tired captain that could use their touch, a sick lieutenant that could use their warmth. He thinks they’ve taken caring about their men to an extreme.

Carwood wakes up when they all curl around him, like Dick had known he would. He turns his head just enough to catch Ron’s lips in a kiss, then accepts the one Nix presses against his temple.

Dick’s lips on his forehead, though, he grumbles about. “Are you trying to take my temperature?”

“Just saying goodnight,” Dick murmurs. He meets Ron’s eyes over Carwood’s head and nods. He’s fine. Then Ron closes his eyes and shifts closer to Carwood, arm tightening around him, face tucked into the crook of his shoulder, and Dick looks past him, too.

Nix is watching him from across the bed, pressed along Ron’s back from shoulder to thigh, waiting patiently for Dick to reach across the boys sleeping between them to meet Nix’s outstretched hand. They lace their fingers together on top of the blankets—on top of Ron and Carwood, peaceful and safe enough where they are, tucked into bed with Dick between them and the rest of the world.

Dick had expected a lot of things from the war, but not this.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Title paraphrased from Mercury by Sleeping At Last.


End file.
